jeudi 14 mai 2009
jeudi 14 mai 2009. Nouveaux produits et services
A screencast demo of WolframAlpha absolutely astonishing ! They say that it will lauch on Friday, May 15, beginning at 7pm CST
. I can't wait !
Found through a Tweet from François Parmentier
Update 20090518 some easter eggs :
mardi 12 mai 2009
mardi 12 mai 2009. Tips & tricks
You are giving a training (conference, demo) in a room with some computers and a LAN connection (Ethernet, WiFi ...). Unfortunately, the over head projector is not available (broken, stolen, whatever...). You can use a "poor man" solution.
If you have a recent Mac, activate ARD[1] on the Mac, if you have a Windows or Linux PC, install a VNC server on it. Configure it so that clients cannot take control of you computer.
On the other computers, install VNC client or use the Java viewer included in VNC server (not available in ARD). Connect all the clients to you VNC server.
This will not be comfortable or wonderful, but at least people will be able to see you slides or demo. Be careful to do things slowly and in advance on your screen because the screen refresh on the other computers will be slow.
[1] Apple Remote Desktop
lundi 11 mai 2009
lundi 11 mai 2009. Tools
This is a translation of the french post Contrôler un Mac à distance (VNC). For screen captures, refer to the original post.
This post describe that situation where the two computers are on the same network. If they are on different networks, use an Internet tool like Yuuguu or SparkAngels or other or configure the NAT of your router. Beware that configuring NAT on the router can lower the safety of your network.
It can be interesting to remotely take control of a Mac. There are various methods. One of them is to use a free tool called VNC. Apple included VNC in Mac OS since 10.4.
On the mac that you want to control, you just need to activate VNC.
Go to System preferences Click on Sharing and check the box near Apple Remote Desktop. In the dialog check Viewers can control screen with a password and set a password. You will need to give your admin password to authorize this.
On the machine which will take control, install a VNC client. Currently, the best one seems to be JollysFastVNC. In the original post, it was demonstrated with Chicken of the VNC. When you start your VNC client, it should offer a list of the available VNC servers on the network. Select the one you configured and enter the password.
There are [VNC clients and servers for Windows and Linux|http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Networking/Thin_Clients/Virtual_Network_Computing//|en°, so you can do the same between a Mac and a Windows stations.
lundi 11 mai 2009. Tools
JollysFastVNC is currently the best VNC client for Mac OS (10.4, 10.5). There is a recent update version 0.98.08.
See also Clients VNC pour Mac OS X
lundi 11 mai 2009. Outils
JollysFastVNC est actuellement le meilleur client VNC pour Mac OS (10.4, 10.5). Il a été récement mis à jour en version 0.98.08.
Voir aussi Clients VNC pour Mac OS X
mercredi 6 mai 2009
mercredi 6 mai 2009. Polémiques
Un long article qui mérite d'être lu par ceux qui souhaitent passer à Linux, ceux qui recommandent de passer à Linux, et tous les autres, peu ou prou intéressés par l'état d'esprit du logiciel libre. C'est un article déjà ancien (3 ans...) mais toujours d'actualité.
Version originale en anglais (Linux is Not Windows)
C'est ce que la communauté linuxienne veut: Un SE qui puisse être installé par quiconque le veuille. Donc si vous pensez à passer à Linux, demandez vous d'abord ce que vous voulez vous-même.
Si vous voulez un système d'exploitation qui ne fasse pas le chauffeur, mais vous donne les clefs, vous mette au volant et qui attende de vous que vous sachiez quoi faire: Installez Linux. Vous devrez y dévouer du temps pour apprendre à vous en servir, mais une fois que vous l'aurez fait, vous aurez un SE à qui vous pourrez demander de se mettre debout pour le su-sucre et danser comme un caniche.
Si vous voulez juste un Windows sans malwares et problèmes de sécurité: Renseignez-vous sur des consignes de sécurité; installez un bon Firewall anti-intrusion, un anti-malware, un anti-virus; remplacez IE par un navigateur Internet plus sûr; et faites vos mises-à-jour. Il existe des gens (moi compris NdT: Traducteur exclu) qui ont utilisé Windows de la 3.1 à XP sans être infecté par aucun virus: vous pouvez le faire vous aussi. Ne prenez pas Linux: il ne fera pas ce que vous voulez de lui.
Si vous voulez vraiment la sécurité et la performance d'un système basé sur Unix mais orienté client/commercial: Achetez un Mac. OSX est correct. Mais ne prenez pas Linux: il ne fera pas ce que vous voulez de lui.
La question n'est pas seulement "Pourquoi je voudrais Linux ?". C'est aussi "Pourquoi Linux voudrait de moi ?"
mardi 5 mai 2009
mardi 5 mai 2009. Mises à jours
Il n'y a pas d'urgence, mais mes clients vont bientôt me parler de Windows 7. J'ai sauté sur l'occasion de la sortie d'une nouvelle version d'évaluation pour faire un premier test rapide. J'ai donc téléchargé officiellement cette version à partire du site de Microsoft.
Petit agacement, pour le téléchargement, fait à partir de mon Mac, une applet java de téléchargement se lance à la place du téléchargement http normal. Pour quoi faire ?
Dans VMware, je demande la création d'une nouvelle machine virtuelle. Comme le type Windows 7 n'est pas disponible, je choisis le type Windows Vista. Je désigne le fichier de l'image iso comme CD d'insatallation et je paramètre le partage de VMware de manière à pouvoir acéder au disque de mon Mac comme à un dossier partagé. Je rentre la clé copié sur le site de téléchagement, et je laisse faire en tâche de fond. Mon ventilateur se met en route, signe d'une charge processeur importante, mais tout se passe sans problème particulier.
Charge processeur du Mac...
Une fois l'installation terminée, j'installe FireFox 3.0.7 pour "crier victoire" sur Twitter ;-)
Je m'aperçoit que VMware a automatiquement installé les VMware tools et qu'ils fonctionnent ! Je commence à fouiller un peu dans les réglages et tombes sur Information et outils de performance qui me donne ce résultat :
A suivre ...
lundi 4 mai 2009
lundi 4 mai 2009. Impact de la technologie
I discovered Glynx some time ago. The concept is interesting but there are some "unresolved" questions. This drives me to try to collect here some background info then some wishes.
This area of online identity management is not really well defined. And it touch to other key aspects like reputation, identification, security ... So, you may think that some items are missing and others are not relevant.
We leave bits and pieces of our identity on various locations online. For example, creating a mail account on Gmail is creating a bit of our identity. For the people we send mail to, we will be known as jean.dupont@gmail.com. The Gmail service will store our mails and also the mail address of our correspondents. This is the start of an online identity and also of a social graph. The same apply to other services like Flickr, FaceBook, FriendFeed, Twitter ...
Soon, there are three big needs appearing.
We need to keep track of the various online services we opened an account on, the information we disclosed on each services and who can see this information. It would be better if we could keep most of this information locally on our computer and give to each piece of information some group permission like "Family", "Business contact", "Unknown visitors"
Our identity is the most valuable thing we have online. Our social graph is an important part of our identity[1]. It is also a tool for other people to know us. This graph being scattered on so many services, it is difficult if not impossible to properly manage it.
When we connect to somebody, we need to be able to trust that the online identity we connect to is owned by the people we know wether we know this people by another online identity or by his/her offline identity.
We need to "own" the data. This means that we either manage it locally through a tool we can trust, or we delegate it handling and storage to a service we can trust. I recently discovered Glynx. The presentation is interesting, the tool has already some real value inside even if it is not yet polished on the outside.
Just a note on the software itself. I will not be critical on it. This is not the purpose of this note. Glynx is based on open source software even if it license is clearly closed source. The user interface is really average. To have some real adoption, it will need to be more polished. This is not an issue in the mean time if the services it provide are of real value to users.
Taking opportunity of the availability of this tool, let's discuss what is missing.
Glynx uses "BlackPage" to allow to establish peer to peer connection. BlackPages are like White pages but opaque in order to protect privacy. The first to go for this kind of tools will be geeks. But these people wants to know a lot more before adopting such a product. They will ask a lot of questions about security, trust and so on. So they will prefer to go with an open source[2] tool because of the possibility to scrutinize it. There are initiatives in the open source which does not seem to have much success. A closed source one has few chances to convince.
Then, going to more mainstream users, I will have a hard time to convince my "average" contacts to install another app to handle their identity before they see any real benefit (see services) for them apart from "being master of my contacts...".
On the local machine, it should get the list of IM contacts, and the content of the address book not only on Outlook but also on Thunderbird at least. There is a Vcard import feature, but it is not for the casual user. And a quick test exporting a vcard from Entourage and trying to import it to Glynx, did not gave a result.
The "power users" are not only on FaceBook, they are on LinkedIn, Orkut, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Viaduc, Xing, Flickr...
And the issue is to reconcile the various connections they have or they forgot to create on some of these networks.
The main service is clear for some people which are concerned about their digital identity. But the average user need more incentive to switch to using "yet another application". So giving this product some additional related features would help adoption :
If this software is willing to go to the professional market, it should connect to LDAP.
As far as I know, there are no equivalent software availalble in this field. But there are some online services claiming to allow you to have all your online personal data in one place (see also resources at end). This is called social network aggregators.
Lot of services are becoming OpentID provider. That is good for spreading OpenID. But it is useless for the broader issue.
As far as I know, there is nothing really avaiable in this area...
[1] "Tell me whom you spend time with and I will tell you who you are." : "Dis-moi qui tu hantes, je te dirai qui tu es."
[2] The term is used here in a generic meaning opposing to closed source or proprietary.
samedi 2 mai 2009
samedi 2 mai 2009. Outils
Un tableau très utile pour choisir son outil et découvrir des fonctions. J'y ai (re)découvert la fonction "gestion et suivi statistique des url" de bit.ly.
(utilitaires, outils) > Revue des réducteurs d'URL :
Ce tableau présente les fonctionnalités de quelques outils permettant de réduire la longueur des adresses de pages (URL) pour les rendre plus pratiques à manipuler.
Réducteurs d'URL
http://www.metral.info/web2_outils/shorturl
Langue: français
Accès: gratuit
